A lone person walks into a bedroom and opens up their laptop logging in and opening up . Sighing in relief they sign into an account and after hitting a few buttons disappears in a flash of light.
Janna, Omnitraxus Prime, and The Spongebob Narrator are all frozen in some sort of landscape covered in ice with a hulking figure with the word 'reality' chiseled into it's back seems to be relaxing.
Reality: Hmmm, only a matter of time before people lose faith in this story, not even an author's apology for why it was so late. My dear Hippie you have...
Two Steps From Hell - Flameheart watch?v=BQMpRWuT6hk
Hippie: Returned? *A flash of light emerges from behind Reality make it sit up in shock* Ripped from my home of 19 years, forced to go on vacation for nearly 10 days, leaping back and forth between job interviews, *Reality slowly turns it head in shock looking behind it* dealing with an electric company that can't communicate with itself, falling behind on EMT class and having to push 120% just to break even, working with the fire department in strings of calls giving me writers block, working over time because my workplace is short staffed, being forced to help with my parents setting up their house so they could sell it so they could move to my dad's new workplace, and having issues setting up my internet when I do have free time preventing me from signing on here *The Hippie steps through a screen of sleet to reveal he is now wearing a trench coat and holding a staff with runes of power chiseled into it glowing an eerie purplish-green light*; and you thought that was enough to stop me?
Reality: Impossible!
Hippie: Not probable. I underestimated you but it seems you underestimated me even more. *Begins glowing with power as he runs at Reality* Time to take you down bitch! *As he leaps at a now shocked Reality he freezes in mid air turnign towards the audience* Sorry for the long delays folks, enjoy the episode because I'm back baby!
Star let the relaxing music flow around her as she stretched her underwear clad body basking in the heat lamps above her. She didn't really need to do Zen time now but she found this was the best way for her to read pretty much anything that wasn't for official learning purposes. And besides, she needed a break from her computer games and was somewhat hoping Marco would come in to give her snuggles. She was surprised he was so eager to snuggle as she was but it was a welcome one; similar to him loving to brush her hair. She snuggled down into her nest of pillows and picked up a new comic book, the title read 'Princless', and reached over snagging a BBQ chicken wing. As she savored the taste of the wing the only thing she wished she could do was shed the underwear she was wearing currently to get fully comfortable but ignored that urge. Her parents had informed her of when it was appropriate to shed her clothes outside of bathing and being a guest in another dimension MOST definitely counted as not appropriate. Besides the thought of Marco walking in on her like this and seeing her in that state made her blush. She shook the idea thought out of her head as she continued reading, ignoring the fast paced pounding sounds that approached her door. She did notice when the sound of splintering wood sounded off with Marco shouting out.
"STAR! You have to hear this!" Star bounced up in shock sending the comic book and the chicken wings flying with BBQ sauce getting all over the comic book and pillows staining them. Her jumping up also must have shifted some of the heat lamps as two fell to the side with the bulb in one smashing as the lamp fell. As Star stared in shock at the ruined comic book, pillows, wings, and heat bulb Marco continued like a hyperactive Chihuahua. "I just got word from Alfonzo who got word from Dennis about this new thing we need to get involved with as it is just so… Star?" At this point Marco noticed the mess that had just emerged with Star turning towards him with an annoyed tick in her eye as she spoke eerily calmly.
"Marco, I'm having zen time right now, I even put a sign up on the door this time to let you know. How could you not…" It was at this point Star also noticed that in his excitement Marco had kicked down her door making her fume at him. "YOU KICKED DOWN MY DOOR!? What the bloody hell is so important that you had to kick down my bedroom door!" Marco was a deer caught in the headlights and looked side to side shivering slightly before handing Star a little note he had.
"A-Alfonzo got word from Dennis a-about a new thing a-at…" Star snatched the note from him and began reading it with her relaxing as she read the note.
"A new revolutionary shooter game at the Amethyst Arcade called 'C.O.D.E.'. Interactive game platform, completely immerses your mind, enter a different form of reality entirely?" Star blinked in shock her excitement growing. "Oh my Gods this is the special game they have been hinting at for years! And… did Dennis get all day passes for this!" Star pumped a fist in victory. "Yes, count me in on this day of days." She turned to Marco her annoyance long gone. "So who else is coming?" Marco blinked in shock that Star's anger had dissipated so quickly but replied eagerly enough.
"Dennis asked everyone in our circle but only Alfonzo and Chloe were free and willing to participate so it's just 5 of us." Star blew some hair out of her face with a smirk on her face as she replied.
"Well their loss, you get ready while I get changed for this day. This is gonna be awesome." Star turned to get clothes on while Marco looked at the door he had just kicked in.
Due to it being solid wood he had actually kicked it off the fame detaching the door from the hinges so it shouldn't be too difficult to fix even without magic. His eye did catch a note on the door stating 'Am having zen time; do not disturb unless if it involves food, is life or death, or you are Marco coming in for snuggles.' Marco blushed at the last one as, while he did like snuggling with Star and did it nightly in pj's, the thought of doing it while she was in her underwear was… 'Damn, modesty on Mewni must have very different standards then here on earth.' Marco thought to himself while leaving the room.
Marco, Star, Dennis, Chloe, and Alfonzo stepped through the portal into the Amethyst Arcade with Chloe and Alfonzo gaping in awe around them.
"Whoa… SO MANY VIDEO GAMES!" Alfonzo shouted at the top of his lungs falling to his knees in worship. "It's… *sniff* so beautiful." Dennis walked up to Alfonzo patting his shoulder and offering him a handkerchief speaking up.
"I know huh. One of the most beautiful artificially made sites in the cosmos." As they stared out over the arcade Star whispered to Chloe.
"Marco had a somewhat similar reaction." Chloe nodded replying softly as she stared out over the arcade.
"Yeah, I can see why." Star chuckled and spoke to herself.
"Nerds. Then again I guess I am one of them." She then spoke up loud enough for everyone to hear. "So where is 'C.O.D.E.' Dennis?" Dennis immediately snapped to attention and began leading everyone to the side while talking.
"C.O.D.E., it means Collective Oriented Dynamic Engrossment and is actually the name of the system they are using to host this new game. Have any of you ever heard of stories like 'The Matrix' where people enter a virtual world?" Everyone nodded at that one excitedly. "Well this is what the game system is; you are quite literally taken and put into a virtual world where you get to do whatever the game requires you to do." Everyone oohd in awe at that with Alfonzo commenting.
"I keep forgetting that these things are possible thanks to magic." Dennis and Star outright laughed at that with Dennis speaking back up.
"Oh the only magic related to this is its power source; the rest is pure scientific technology. Cutting edge to the point where multiple governments are even eyeing it to see what they could use it for." Marco scoffed and spoke up.
"Why doesn't that surprise me? No offense." He spoke the last line at Star with her shrugging and replying.
"All's good. So where is this game system being hosted at and what games do we get to play!" Star was bouncing slightly with her tail wriggling as Dennis chuckled with his reply.
"Oh the games are unkown and it should be right… here?" Dennis gestured to an empty part of the arcade where there was a large white sheet covering something massive. "Where are all the crowds, this is supposed to be a big thing?"
"Oh didn't you lot hear, postponing opening." Everyone looked to see a square was talking to them. "Something about 'technical difficulties' and what not. This is why you should not rely too much on science and go for magic to help you out." He turned away ignoring the group with everyone's excitement going down. Dennis sighed at turned back to everyone speaking up.
"Sorry guys, looks like we are not gonna experience this." Star spoke up at that.
"That's ok, I can wait a little while longer. Which gives Marco plenty of time to fix my door and my carpet after…" An electrical sounding zap rang out through the arcade from the far side of the sheet with a scream of pain accompanying it. "… bloody hell." Marco took off in towards the scream immediately speaking up.
"Saved by the shriek, come on let's see if we can help." Everyone looked at each other for a second before shrugging and taking off for the sound.
They ran around the sheet covered object, took quite a while as well, until they found an area with the sheet propped up like the entrance of a tent. Standing in the entry way were several figures with one yelling at two of them and three lugging off a fourth figure past Star and company. They saw the figure being lugged was some sort of shirtless albino gorilla like man with the figures pulling him being a sheet ghost with a five figured hand on its head, a green skinned humanoid with bloodshot eyes who was doing most of the lifting, and a man dressed up in fine clothes with a gumball shaped head who was whistling a cheery tune. As they got closer to the trio they could finally hear the yelling which was being done by some sort of humanoid gumball machine with 5 o'clock shadow.
"You idiots realize that if we can't get this fixed by tomorrow all our asses are going to be over the fire, and I'm gonna make extra sure you guys take the worst of if Skips doesn't recover from that 'prank' of yours." The two figures nodded with the gumball entity walking off muttering under his breath in anger. The gang of 5 stopped to just absorb what was going on as the two figures began talking to each other with the one that looked like a humanoid raccoon speaking first.
"Man, he's rough isn't he?" At this his companion, a humanoid blue jay, glared at him and replied.
"You know what, for once I'm taking his side in this conflict Rigby." Rigby blinked in shock as the blue jay continued. "You just had to mess around with those two wires playing mad scientist while he was working on the hard ware. I get doing it during a break and seeing if a miracle would happen, or zapping your head to make it go Albert Einstein, but you could have just cost us a whole YEAR'S worth of pay man. We could buy all sorts of stuff with that." At this the Rigby snorted and turned his back to the bird replying snarkly.
"Well Mordecai care to explain how the park burned down and you could have put it out but you were so 'engrossed' while talking on the phone to your girlfri…"
"Why you little!" Mordecai leapt at Rigby and the two began wrestling with insults being thrown around, mostly along the lines of 'Failure Einstein' and 'Phubber (Phone snubbing)'. After a little bit of this Marco got their attention with a sharp 'Ahem' that made them both freeze comedically. "Um, can we help you?" Dennis spoke up at this.
"Yes actually, what is going on with 'C.O.D.E' right now?" The two separated with Rigby speaking up.
"Oh you know just technical difficulties causing delays and what not. No need to worry." A bead of sweat broke out on both their foreheads as Chloe spoke up.
"Yeah, I'm getting the feeling this issue is bigger than you are letting on." The duo looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes with Mordecai speaking up.
"I have no idea what you are talking about miss, we are just…" Alfonzo butted into the conversation at this clearly annoyed.
"Look I am missing a 'Master Blaster' marathon for this disappointment; just tell us what's really going on!" Star, Chloe, Dennis, and Marco looked at him in shock as he wasn't one for outbursts while Mordecai tried to explain.
"Well you see something happened to the computer program that was fixed but then it somehow damaged the hardware which we are supposed to fix and now Skips is down and we have no support or any idea of what we are doing or why we are even here as we have no experience or if we can make it good and and and…" Mordecai then broke down with anxious sobs as Marco spoke up.
"Hey man you ok?" Rigby put an arm over Mordecai's shoulders to comfort him and yelled at the group of five.
"Oh now look what you've done. We've been under a lot of stress and you kids come and break him like that." He snapped his fingers to push his point. "If his sobs weren't so damn hilarious and harmonic I'd smack you all silly!" The group of five looked at each other in concern with Star speaking up first.
"Can we help them?" Marco shrugged and replied.
"I'm not sure there's much we can do. It also seems like these guys got themselves into this mess in the first place soooo…" He shrugged with Dennis speaking up.
"We are going to help them." Alfonzo blinked in confusion at this as Dennis linked his arm with Alfonzo's. "A friend in need is a friend indeed or as you would put it 'Do a Good Turn Daily'." Chloe giggled at this and spoke up to Alfonzo.
"You were in Boy Scouts?" Alfonzo shrugged as he replied.
"Still am actually. But what can we do to help these guys?" Dennis smiled at him as he replied.
"Well you showed me how you were able to build your own PC and with my experience with this technology we can at least troubleshoot right?" Alfonzo nodded with Mordecai speaking up through the sobs.
"Wait, you guys are gonna help us?" The five friends nodded, some more reluctantly, with Mordecai letting out a sigh of relief. "Thanks Gods, we know nothing about this and since Skips is down nothing was gonna get accomplished. Just go through there and don't pull an Idiot Einstein like this guy did." He pointed to Rigby who only groaned in annoyance.
The group went under the sheet to see something that would have been right at home in the movie Tron. Large computer boxes like those from the 1980's were placed around in a maze like pattern and had red and blue lights coming from them making it seem like a game of laser tag. The group let a unified 'Coooool' before letting themselves be led by Rigby and Mordecai deeper into the maze of computers. After a surprisingly short time they came to what looked to be a master control station with 6 large panels containing an uncountable amount of levers and switches were in a semicircle around a swivel chair. The chair had some sort of keyboard and computer screen on it with several more rather important looking levers and switches on its handles. One feature that was noticeable was the fact that one of the panels had its back taken off and was smoking with the smell of burnt plastic and metal in the area.
"So you see we isolated the problem here but can't figure out what's wrong with it." Rigby pointed at the smoking panel with Alfonzo and Dennis going up to its back and staring. "Yeah we tried that, didn't work." Alfonzo rubbed his chin for a second before pulling out a magnifying glass and nodded.
"Here's the problem, some guy switched up the inputs by mixing up the VGA connectors and Serial ATA's. Rookie mistake man." Alfonzo quickly and deftly switched some wires around while Dennis continued to analyze the issue.
"Someone also messed up the hard drive by cutting the coolant pipe making it leak and…"
SN: One nerdy fix it scene later.
"… and that should be all that's needed to fix the hard drive." Dennis replaced the back panel while Alfonzo wiped his face leaving a smear of grease across it.
"Oh you guys are good." Star and Marco applauded silently with Mordecai and Rigby dancing in glee that everything was fixed. Chloe walked up to Alfonzo and began inching her finger up his arm.
"Well done my fix it nerd. You want a reward for a job…" Suddenly all the lights began flashing in a threatening manner. "… Ummm." At this Marco spoke up again.
"Either this is really good or really bad." Dennis leapt into the control chair and began punching in numbers and letters into the system trying to troubleshoot.
"This makes no sense; we fixed the hard drive and you guys claimed the program was fixed so what…" One of the red and blue lights suddenly turned green. "… what…" And then another and another turned green. "Oh this is bad." He quickly looked up the main system processing functions and his feathers went limp in fear. "Oh… I think I know why it was broken people. Apparently that 'error' in the program was a really bad computer virus and those mistakes we just fixed were keeping it in check." Alfonzo shuddered in fear while everyone else just blinked in confusion with Star speaking up.
"Can't you just 'scan and repair' like Norton does?" Dennis and Alfonzo stared at her deadpan with Alfonzo answering.
"It only works if you can actually identify how the virus works and quarantine it so you can rewrite the program and get rid of it. This virus is acting fast and we have no idea how to deal with it so who knows what it could do." Everyone looked at each other for a second before Marco got scared.
"Wait, isn't this a system that is supposed to upload you to a virtual reality and because of that be able to return you to the real world?" Rigby spoke up at that.
"What does that have to… ohhhhhh. This is just like that one movie I saw on the late show with creatures invading from another reality." Everybody shivered at that as the implications fell into place. A computer virus was bad enough but if it could take physical form…
"We need to go into the system and stop it." Everyone looked at Chloe like she was crazy. "Well we can't risk it getting out and it needs to put itself into that reality to get to ours so it won't damage the world too greatly. And unless if there is a way to just shut it all down…" She looked at Mordecai and Rigby who just shook their heads. "…then we don't have any better options aside from just destroying everything which may or may not work." Alfonzo and Dennis went to answer but stopped for a second before speaking at the same time.
"She's… right. If we take the fight to it we can prevent it from becoming too great of a threat. And if it's busy in the virtual reality it won't be focusing on corrupting the system giving us time to find a cure for it." The duo looked at each other in shock for a second before fist bumping. "You just read my mind man." Rigby chuckled and spoke up.
"Reminds me of a dorky version of us huh Mordecai?" Mordecai shrugged and spoke up to everyone.
"Well we can help get you guys into the world but we can't really go there as someone needs to be here to explain how a group of kids fixed things and are dealing with a computer virus." Everyone nodded with Star speaking up.
"Well looks like we are gonna experience the game today, ready Marco?" She held out her hand with Marco grabbing onto it.
"I am in." Chloe grabbed Star's other hand speaking up.
"I'm going in to help too." The duo looked at her oddly as she explained. "You are going to need all the help you can get with these four being busy and I need to contribute somehow." Star went to argue but Marco beat her to it.
"Eh this is a video game, as long as you don't slow us down I don't see any problem with that." Star turned on Marco annoyed.
"Marco, she can't fight, what if she gets hurt?" Marco shrugged and replied.
"It's a video game, we can't actually die in there for good… right?" He turned towards the other with Dennis speaking.
"Well you can't die for good but if you are eliminated you will be out for 10 minutes at least and here seconds my start counting at any moment. So if you guys could hurry it up…" He motioned at them with everyone nodding.
Code Lyoko OST 15 Virtualization [EXTENDED] watch?v=FpQkD1Fb3Po
Star, Marco, and Chloe were standing in front of several pod like structures that according to the two workers said were meant to transport them into the world. The pods opened allowing them to step inside with the doors closing letting out a hiss of steam and Alfonzo's voice ringing out.
"Transfer Marco. Transfer Star. Transfer Chloe." The pods began to hum as Rigby spoke up.
"Oh my Gods it's just like we're part of a big action movie now!" Mordecai nodded barely able to contain his own excitement as Dennis spoke now hitting keys on the keyboard.
"Scanner Marco. Scanner Star. Scanner Chloe." Alfonzo leapt around the control panels hitting switches and flipping levers to get the right calibration down. As they did so the three in the pods began to levitate with lights scanning every nook and cranny on them. "And… VIRTULIZATION!" Dennis hit a big button on his arm rest uploading the three kids into the virtual reality.
Light consumed their vision as Star, Marco, and Chloe were swept into the virtual reality and they felt their bodies change. One second they were firmly in reality, the next they felt like they were light moving without substance tingling all over, and then they began to be weighed down once more but differently. Their senses of smell and taste were gone and they felt their bodies were shaped differently like they were wearing some sort of full body costume. They barely had time to get used to it however before they suddenly fell about 10 feet landing awkwardly on the ground. It was also then that they noticed their sense of touch was altered as well, making pain feel more 'electrical' if that word could be used. They got up from their tumble and took a look around taking in their world seeing mist clad mountains with short stumpy trees growing out of crevices in parts. Marco blinked and inhaled deeply wishing they had programed the smell of mountain air in and looked at Star and Chloe. Chloe it seemed was wearing some sort of red and gold Cheongsam with her once again long hair done up with chopsticks. Star was now wearing some sort of sleeveless hide armor with a skull over each shoulder and over her head with her hair done back in a braid. Marco smiled at them and spoke up feeling the voice leave his vocal chords differently and sounding like a recording of himself.
"Well looks like you guys took to the game well enough." The girls both looked at each other and then looked at Marco with Chloe giggling and Star rolling her eyes before speaking.
"Seriously, taking the knight ideals into this world?" Marco blinked in confusion before Star pointed to a small 'pond' to the side.
Marco looked in seeing that he was wearing some sort of Samurai armor with twin flags sticking out of his back, one containing a cat like creature that looked like Nacho and the other holding a yin-yang symbol. Marco admired himself for a second thinking that he looked pretty cool actually and turned back to the girls shrugging and speaking.
"Eh, I think it fits me."
"No time to admire yourselves we got a virus to stamp out." The three jumped as Dennis's voice rang out from inside their heads. "Sorry, I can't talk to you the normal way as we are in different realities right now. Anyways, I transported you to a server that was most stable and had had an interesting buildup of data at one end of it that is most likely the virus trying to assume physical form. Follow the floating arrow to get to its location." At this a golden arrow appeared in mid air and began pointing to the northeast shimmering slightly in the air with Star speaking up.
"Welp, guess we are playing a video game today; just seems that something real is on the line for once. Let's go." They all turned and ran in the arrows direction with the arrow keeping pace just in front of the group.
end music
Thank you all for sticking with me through thick and thin folks, I'm never giving up until this story is done. And that is a promise. ;)